THE CHRISTMAS STORY, BEAN STYLE

We're busily decorating for Christmas. We have a plastic Nativity scene for the girls once they decide they've had enough ornament hanging. Apparently, this Nativity scene was quite inspirational to Bean. She proceeded to tell us her version of the Christmas story:

"Once upon a time, Baby Jesus got stuck in the mud. Then, a creature came and took him, and he didn’t go home. So, Zerena came with all the people, and they started to sing. There was no room in the house, but they made some room. All the people came to get the room. The angels came and said, 'We need to ring the bell.' And the angel landed in the night, and took a bath. The end."

MAMA LOVES - BABY GIGGLES

My friend Tanya over at In the Dailies has a weekly blog carnival about the little things that make us love being moms. One of the greatest joys of being a mom, as far as I'm concerned, is baby giggles.


Peanut laughs so hard at a little noise or a game of Peek-a-Boo. The joy just bubbles out of her. Having kids is such a great reminder to enjoy the simple things in life!

HOW DID THAT GET HERE?

Bean and Cakes woke up pretty early this morning and were prowling the house for who knows how long until they came into my room to wake me up and tell me about their amazing new discovery:

Yes, that's a dead bird at the bottom of the steps.

So, my question is, how did it get here? And, how do I get rid of it? And, how do I keep my kids from touching it while I figure out if I can actually bring myself to pick it up and take it out to the trash? They've intricately woven this dead bird into one of their imaginative storylines.

Aaah, country life ...

LIFE IS LIKE A SHAKESPEAREAN PLAY

My mother was an English teacher, so I often look at the world through Shakespeare-colored glasses. Something that happened over the weekend reminded me of Hamlet. I don't want to get into the whole, complicated story of Hamlet and all its interpretations. There is one speech in the story, however, that I would like to highlight.

Hamlet was upset with his mother for murdering his father and carrying on with his uncle. So, he was going on a tirade about all the things that made him angry and/or irritated about women. At one point in the speech, he highlighted women's general predisposition to "nickname God's creatures." At the risk of sounding sexist, that is so true. You don't see men doing it, but women do have a tendency to nickname God's creatures. As illustrated by my cherubs:

This time of year, we tend to get swarmed with migrating ladybug-type insects. They look like ladybugs to me, but I've been told that they're not. Anyway, they got into Grampy's hobby room. So, Grampy got out the trusty ol' Raid and killed them. Later, the girls happened upon the pile of dead ladybugs. For some reason, Bean decided to name one "Shirley." (I can only imagine that "Shirley" came from the fact that we are currently reading the second book in the Anne of Green Gables series). So, Bean was marching around the house, talking about Shirley the Ladybug, when Cakes chimed in, "Shirley and all her dead friends!"

TEMPERA PAINT

Although I wish I were, I'm not really the kind of mom that has a regularly scheduled craft time with the kids. For one thing, I'm not very crafty. I mean, I knit and cross stitch and stuff, but it's always with patterns. I don't come up with my own ideas, I don't scrapbook, I don't sew, etc. And, although I tend to be a bit cluttered, I'm not a big fan of making messy things. That's why my kids don't often help me cook. My poor nerves can't handle flour, sugar, eggs, and other ingredients being tossed about the kitchen by happy, energetic children.

With homeschooling, I'm trying to focus on doing a seasonal craft once a week. So, armed with craft books my husband found on one of his jobs repairing an abandoned, water-damaged preschool, I began my journey into Craft Land. The first thing I noticed was that most of these crafts required construction paper and tempera paint. So, I went to the store and got construction paper and tempera paint. The cherubs were excited, so I let them each paint two pictures when we got the paint home from the store. Then, I put the paint on top of the refrigerator (safely out of reach of grabby little hands) and put my paint-drenched cherubs in the tub.

This morning, I walked into the kitchen to find Bean standing on a chair and pulling the paint down from the top of the fridge. So, I relented. The girls love painting.


And I'm just cringing inside and drawing water for a post-painting bath ....

GEARING UP FOR THANKSGIVING ...

... with turkey pancakes. Gobble, gobble!

Anyone have ideas for Thanksgiving crafts for homeschooling?

BERT AND ERNIE ... SORT OF

On a typical Sunday, Big Daddy's sisters and their husbands come to our house after church for a family dinner. Then, they amuse my children while I try to get some things done or just relax for a couple of hours. This week, Big Daddy got some fancy bakeware, and Aunts Kimmy and Tracy decided it would be fun to bake a Bert and Ernie cake with Bean and Cakes.

Here is the cake pan (a rather ambitious undertaking, but I wasn't doing the baking this time):

The first problem arose when the cake did not come cleanly out of the baking pan. So, Big Daddy and Aunt Kimmy carefully scraped the Muppet faces out of the pan and put it together like a jigsaw puzzle. After it cooled, Aunt Kimmy and the girls began to decorate, using up all the leftover icing in the house. They had to get a bit creative, seeing as we did not have enough of any one color to get a true Bert and Ernie rendition.

Aunt Kimmy did Bert, the girls did Ernie. The result? I like to think of it as "Sesame Street Meets The Exorcist."

And this proves that I am not the only pitiful excuse for a baker in the family!

CAMERA (UN)SHY

I have a month-by-month frame for each of the cherubs for their first year of life. It's been nice, because it forces me to take lots of pictures of each of them. My little brother is always joking that there are no pictures of him as a kid because he's the third. I don't want to give poor Cakes and Peanut to have the same complaint.

I have noticed that the more kids I have, the harder it is to get a monthly picture of the youngest for a frame. Every time I prop up Peanut and break out the camera, Bean or Cakes (or both) show up smiling and yelling "cheese" and mauling Peanut with love and affection. Like Cakes did for Peanut's month three photo.

And like Bean did for Peanut's month four photo.